


The Enemy's My Honesty

by pansypxrkinson



Category: Batman: The Telltale Series (Video Game)
Genre: Also John Deserved Better, Angst, Batman Telltale Episode 5 Villain Route Character Study, Hopeful Ending, M/M, My attempts to get inside Bruce Wayne's head, Suffering, That's not really relevant to the story it's just true, okay...so y'all who follow my old blog knew i was gonna crack eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 05:25:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14664228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pansypxrkinson/pseuds/pansypxrkinson
Summary: He thinks he sees that destructive little thing that lives inside of himself, and he sees it now, written all over John's face, and a part of him is guilty and a part of him is not.Bruce's thoughts as he faces down John in the Villain Route.





	The Enemy's My Honesty

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys!  
> Finally, I'm back with something for you guys who prefer my video game-y stuff to the rest! I know it's been a little while <3 This is a little thing I wrote after Ep5 had me shook ! (I also have an Until Dawn thing coming up soon for those of you into Climbing Class).  
> I hope you enjoy,  
> PP x

_You broke my heart, John._  
  
The words are out of his mouth before he'd even really known they were true. They'd lived placidly inside of him, growing steadily in the silence before he'd even known they'd existed like a tumour.  
  
Now they fall sharp and heavy like the rain that steadily beats against the tall skyscrapers of Gotham. It shocks him far more than all the previous events of the night.  
  
Revealed.  
  
Accepted.  
  
Bruce thinks maybe he should feel shame. How dare his mouth betray him like this. For saying the words out loud makes them real, doesn't it? It makes them tangible.  
  
Bruce has never really liked honesty. Most of the time its relationship to justice is necessary, but he'd rarely needed to extend that honesty inwards. He's never really been all that honest with himself. He's scared of what he'd find there if he was. It's safer to smother the part of him that's glad to see the smile that plays around John's mouth, if only for the sick familiarity of it all. It's always been the both of them, hasn't it.  
  
And there it is. The reason he doesn't let himself live in his own thoughts.  
  
They're a little chaotic, and he's afraid that somehow he'll start to twist over to the darkness that swims just outside of his vision.  
  
They're a...little too John.  
  
Now his face throbs in pain, certainly, but partly in a phantom ache, desperate for the mask. Desperate for concealment. It's safety to him. It's his equivalent of a warm body on cold nights.  
  
It doesn't make him think, like John had. Really, it doesn't say anything at all, as the heavy Gotham air strikes his face in the darkness, a whip far harsher than any villian could yield.  
  
Because he knows. He can see the way they all look at him. Like he's clinging to smoke and bone. Like he's lost a part of himself, a part of his sanity.  
  
Gordon, Tiffany, Alfred, all wondering how someone like John Doe could be the one to finally break through the walls he put up. To earn his devotion, his hope, if not always his trust, in a way that Selina never could; and he's caught between outrage and detached admiration that his brain has been so throughly and so utterly hacked by someone.  
  
He'd talked and talked of manipulation to John, blind to the reason he'd done so. After all, who reveals their secrets so easily like that? Surely not Bruce who knows better. Surely not when he knows how easily John could turn them against him.  
  
At the time he'd fooled himself into thinking he were merely showing off. Putting up his own defensive walls, a rallying cry of ' _you could never hurt me. You're never truly close.'_ The lie had been easier to swallow.  
  
Nonetheless, he'd folded.  
  
Still, if John is to be believed it seems the virus spreads both ways, and a part of him looks at Joker's blooded face and thinks, what a mess they've made of this whole thing.  
  
He thinks he sees that destructive little thing that lives inside of himself, and he sees it now, written all over John's face, and a part of him is guilty and a part of him is not.  
  
There's a small piece of him that loves the unpredictability of him. Of the both of them. He thinks that small part had resided in his father too.  
  
Maybe that's why it feels so natural to say the words out loud.  
  
Maybe that's why it feels normal when John replies,  
  
"If you really loved me, you'd see what we have together is beautiful,"  
  
Like a chill that never left.  
  
Maybe the same part of him agrees, because being with John...it's almost like he was living another life on top of the two he already lived.  
  
A life where he didn't just catch criminals, but could teach something of the goodness he'd never thought he had to someone who was so lost. He tried to save John like Alfred had saved him when he'd been defenceless and mouldable.  
  
John wore his emotions on his sleeve in a way he never could. In a way he and Selina had never quite been able to. They had never been able to quit the habit to retreat back into the masks. That's why her lips against his were easy to forget. Easy to tune out, like white noise.

 He could never forget John.  
  
John had never let him hide like that. He'd known Bruce well enough to know he didn't always want to. Had held him to a standard no one else had bothered with.  
  
Bruce thinks he should feel fear that his emotions are so transparent to him, but truthfully he just feels relief that he doesn't have to explain them, because he's terrible at it.  
  
He knows now that they'll fight again. He knows how glorious it'll feel underneath all the pain and brokeness that he feels right now.  
  
He's never been so completely wrecked by somebody before.  
  
It feels good to throw the first punch. It feels good because he's finally making his mark on the person who left his all over him. Almost like peppered kisses, their bruises, and everything in between; and maybe Bruce always needs to feel in control because his powerlessness at this situation makes him sick with rage, and something within him chimes like an ear splitting bell at the knowledge that he's rather be hitting himself right now.  
  
He's never cared like this before. He's never wanted to.  
  
He didn't-  
  
When he sees John go limp against him, the air is sucked from his chest like a deflating balloon.

 _No._  
  
He hadn't meant for this. He couldn't shatter the game they'd been sucked into. He wasn't ready for reality. It always hit too hard.  
  
Now he's bent over John, attempting to shock the life back into him. He hadn't meant to take it away in the first place.  
  
When he thinks it's failed, he can't help a stray thumb as it brushes at John's bruised mouth. It comes away blood red, paint fading from the rain.  
  
It starts to sink in and he yells, and then folds into himself, his sorrow so unthinkable that when he sees John twitch and gasp his life back underneath him Bruce can't bring himself to be completely surprised.  
  
When he asks if they had fun together, Bruce thinks it's an understatement when he agrees.

Something warm and deeply nostalgic resonates within him, even though the time had been short. He can taste the coffee, and hear the buzzing streets alive with life. The coffee stained napkin had looked like pearls, but now he thinks he would've seen a lipstick smudge, a smile, paint cracked at the edges.  
  
They'd destroyed all that, now. They'd taken the rest of Gotham down as collateral.  
  
It's never how he operates.  
  
It makes him furious.  
  
Lying would've been so much easier. So much more comfortable. It would've twist the knife, too. But he's had enough of that. There's little point when John would probably read through it.  
  
In retrospect, the blade in his side is less of a shock, but the pain is real.  
  
Once again there is a part of him that revels. It whispers, underneath his closed eyelids. He leaves the knife where it lay as he sees darkness, finally.  
  
Part of him never wants to remove it. He never wants to forget them. A part of him so muddied with pain and confusion, and so tortured that the signals must be crossing and that's what sparks the images of his mouth a blood red slit against John's. Mixed paint and crumbled will.  
  
Is that what this is? Is that what he feels?  
  
If John hadn't just knifed him, he thinks he may really have leant down and done it.  
  
As it is, he's drowsy and at his limit. Silent and somewhat at peace on the wet stone concrete.  
  
He thinks they're at a stalemate.

 

* * *

  
  
Several hours later, Bruce presses his fingers tentatively to the wound at his side, even though he shouldn't touch it. He never listens when John's involved.  
  
Ironically, it's the first time Bruce has felt strong in months. The first time he's been honest in years.  
  
He knows now, what he needs to do.


End file.
